Laser-produced dry metal aerosol processing and deposition under dynamic gas and plasma environments

This paper reports on cold plasma-aided processing and deposition of laser-produced dry metal aerosols in a dynamic gas medium under atmospheric pressure, a critical process for selective deposition and doping in device and material manufacturing. The aerosols are generated via heterogeneous condensation of a laser ablation plume from a silver target using IR radiation (30 ns, 1064 nm, 2 J cm ^-2 ) in a gas−flow environment. The resulting aerosols are transported and deposited onto substrates including SiO ₂ thick film, and n-type Si (without surface discharge), as well as aluminum foil, and soda lime glass (with cold surface discharge). The aerosols were transported and deposited using either an argon plasma jet or a hybrid scheme that combines an inclined plasma stream with a gas flow. The surface discharge and cold plasma stream were excited using a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma source. The plasma stream enabled more efficient transport as well as larger particle formation compared to gas flow alone. In the hybrid configuration, deposition resulted in larger aggregates coexisting with a substantial population of smaller-sized particles. The deposited aerosols were poly-crystalline and exhibited plasmonic behavior in the visible region. The influence of plasma−induced effects on particle morphology, spatial distribution, and aggregation behavior was interpreted under dusty-plasma dynamics. This study demonstrates a feasible lab-scale strategy of controlled processing of laser-produced dry metal aerosols for selective deposition and doping materials under ambient conditions with potential applications in material manufacturing, nanoprinting, sensing, and catalysis.